The Long Road to Pokémon Legends: Arceus Led to a Much Needed Boost
The newest entry is exactly what the franchise needed
When Pokémon Legends: Arceus was first announced, I’ll admit I was skeptical. GameFreak has burned me so many times in the past in the Nintendo Switch era of the 25-year-old franchise that I had given up a lot of hope. I figured that at the bare minimum, Legends: Arceus would be a good step in the right direction. Color me surprised, because Legends: Arceus had me captivated for hours on end. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it was something that just sucked away time and before I knew it, the game had been out for a week already. This is exactly what the franchise needed — an adrenaline boost with tweaks to gameplay that spice it enough for it to be something special going forward.
Pokémon’s Long History
I’ve always considered the era of Pokémon from the GameBoy through to the Nintendo DS to be the “Golden Age” for the series. These games were all excellent in their own right, even if I have my personal gripes with the Johto games. From Red and Blue, all the way to Black and White 2, GameFreak was hitting on all cylinders and made incremental improvements with every generation that were actually significant.
Diamond and Pearl, for example, took full advantage of the Nintendo DS to build the infrastructure for the Wi-Fi features we take for granted in the series today. Afterward, Black and White took a step forward in storytelling while showing that relying on Pokémon from previous generations wasn’t entirely needed. Black and White 2 in my eyes, were the pinnacle of the series and perhaps where it finally peaked — by giving us one of the best in terms of gameplay. It’s a game that can be challenging while fixing all of the faults its predecessor had.
When it came to the 3DS, though, Pokémon took a step forward along with multiple steps backward. Although the new 3D models were awesome to see after so many years spent with sprites, X and Y didn’t have much substance to them. It had a boring cast of characters with a way too easy game, wasted on a beautiful setting in the French-inspired Kalos region. The lackluster effort that was X and Y only seemed to be the start of a downwards spiral for the series.
The no-show of X and Y’s post-game only extended into OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire. The remakes of the original Generation 3 Hoenn games were ‘fine’ on paper and in practice, but the problems from Kalos extended into it. A lack of difficulty and post-game just extended into games that were originally excellent. They removed the beloved Battle Frontier from Emerald because “only a very small part of the players would have fully appreciated and made use of this feature”.
After the line graph plummeted in terms of Pokémon being good during Generation 6, GameFreak made up for it with Sun and Moon with the Alola region. They refreshed the formula by introducing Trials instead of Gyms, implementing Kahunas to fit the Hawaiian theme, and writing an excellent story to boot. Ultra Sun and Moon would be directed by one of the lead designers of Black and White 2, Kazumasa Iwao, who would later go on to direct Legends Arceus.
Iwao, after Ultra Sun and Moon, headed on to begin work on Legends Arceus. Junichi Masuda, who we know as the director of many Pokémon games through the years, went on to start work on Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee. Lastly, Shigeru Ohmori, director of Sun and Moon along with OmegaRuby and Alpha Sapphire moved on to begin work on Sword and Shield.
Downward Swing
As a lot of us know, the Switch era hasn’t been great for Pokémon. After how good Sun and Moon were, we all expected a lot more from the series.
Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee was a fun little spin-off and a good way to get casual Pokémon GO players into the series again, but wasn’t quite what fans wanted. The game suffered from fatigue towards the Kanto region, and the straying away from traditional gameplay. It was the first Pokémon game on the Switch, and with how different it was and the game taking place in an alternate universe, we can excuse it as a relative misstep.
Sword and Shield however… left fans utterly devoid of any hope for the series going forward. Taking place in the UK-inspired Galar region, Sword and Shield was designated to a series of straight-edged exploration in its various routes, and a lackluster open area in the form of the Wild Area in the center of the region, where many Pokémon roamed. The use of the football theme from Britain was utterly wasted in a return to the standard Gym formatting.
I think Gyms in Pokémon are fine, mind you. However, after Sun and Moon showed how that formula can be spiced up, I was surprised Ohmori decided to revert back to something so standard. They played it safe with Sword and Shield, but it’s so safe to a fault that it ends up being lackluster. It is a story with no real antagonist or interesting climax, no enjoyable exploration whatsoever, no branching paths through the various routes or region structure. Every single town has a Gym in it, and that’s essentially the sole focus of the game. You’re railroaded into walking this linear path to chase the badges you need.
The previous games with Gyms had variance at least. There were towns that didn’t have any Gyms at all, but provided a bit of story, or felt like interesting pit-stops on your journey. Sometimes there were towns that didn’t do anything at all, but were worth visiting along the way just because they were interesting. Even X and Y had some of those towns and variance to their routes.
Sword and Shield only did two things right — character design and music. But with the Wild Areas, you could see the potential there for something more… something that can be built from. It was a glimmer of hope, but it was a hope that was buried under the mountain of a lackluster game.
Unfortunately, the Diamond and Pearl remakes, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, were not quite what fans wanted either, equated to only meager remasters. Masuda worked on this title alongside the outsourced studio ILCA, which has been a support studio for many games across the industry such as Dragon Quest.
I wish I could say more about Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but that was really it… it’s just a remaster in a lot of ways, with some modern conveniences edited in. And they didn’t even base it off the superior Sinnoh game of Platinum either. It retains all of the problems of Diamond and Pearl which are more glaringly present in a modern game on the Nintendo Switch. It’s not the Sinnoh remake we actually deserve. I’m sure a lot of fans would’ve settled for a game in the style of Sword and Shield instead despite how lackluster those games are. I feel like remakes in that engine would daresay be decent? Surely more interesting than this ‘blah’ feeling effort that ILCA and Masuda gave us.
So with all this in mind, you could understand my skepticism about GameFreak’s announcement of Legends Arceus.
Legends Is What We Needed
Pokémon Legends Arceus really sucked my time away from the very beginning, and I’m so happy to see it catching on with people who don’t usually play Pokémon. It’s a game with a much wider appeal. Why? Because the turn-based gameplay is complemented by the catching gameplay. Using stealth and careful planning, you catch Pokémon straight-up in the wild without battling them. This mechanic alone is a major difference that every Pokémon game should model going forward.
I was so enthralled with this game for about a week, where I just was utterly addicted to catching Pokémon and seeing those dex entries get finished. I loved seeing my star rank going up, and I loved how it felt so grandiose compared to a standard Pokémon game. I was feeling what the series’ potential is — this unique world with tons of Pokémon in it as its form of wildlife. It’s an experience that you don’t quite get with any other franchise.
Taking obvious inspirations from Breath of the Wild and Monster Hunter, the game features several open areas that players can explore, while using various ride-Pokémon to traverse the terrain of each area.
Not only do the Research Tasks of the Pokedex give some more nuance to just catching everything, but it also makes you feel like you’re actually helping research on the dex. Catching a Pokémon alone doesn’t suffice. You have to catch multiple examples of each species or watch the Pokémon utilize certain moves in battle in order to see the effects of it.
Now there are actual side quests in the series as well, which is downright shocking to see. It gave the game some more longevity and encouraged you to go catch more Pokémon out in the wilds. I really appreciate the small changes in this game to add more playtime without the quests feeling arbitrary. Some citizens will ask you to show them a completed Pokedex entry, and completed entries are needed if you want a Shiny Charm at the end of the game. Legends Arceus does an excellent job at taking players out of their comfort zone in this sense, and I applaud it for that.
I know a lot of people say that Pokémon combat is dull, and I don’t personally see it. I think a lot of that is revisionist history or merely people finding that the series isn’t for them. It was fun for a long time during the aforementioned “Golden Age”, but the lack of difficulty and emphasis on the Exp. Share in the 3D era of Pokémon has tanked the enjoyment of the game’s main storylines into something uninteresting.
I always thought Pokémon didn’t need a major overhaul of its combat as a result, just some minor tweaks here and there that still feel fair. I’m happy with what they’ve done in this game, making battles have a turn order like Final Fantasy X or Octopath Traveler. Those are some of my personal favorite JRPGs outside of Pokémon that I enjoyed, so it’s awesome to see the series take that direction.
The reworking of stats for Pokémon in the game allows for you to fine-tune your Pokémon mid-game without having to worry about grinding out EV training or hunting for something with perfect IVs. Due to the way I played the game, grinding out the Pokedex in each area before progressing with the main story, the game was a lot easier for me than it was for others who focused on the main storyline. I was over-leveled… but yet not at certain times.
Alpha Pokémon were still an intimidating challenge due to how good their AI is, and I quickly realized that the new stat system meant that I wasn’t actually over-leveled. I learned this the hard way when my Gardevoir lost over a quarter of her health to a Poison Jab from a Pokémon that was about 20 levels lower. In other games, that attack would’ve been shrugged off despite being super effective.
One direction I didn’t like was the changes to status conditions and stat buffs. Now, I did like the change to Sleep and Freezing, converting them into, essentially, versions of Paralysis and Burning. That’s fine, but having status conditions that seem redundant feels like a lazy way to rework them. I’d much prefer Sleep to remain as-is, with some nerfs to not make it as punishing.
Freezing is a strong status condition, but there’s never been a way to actually place a Freeze on an opponent unless you get lucky with the 10% chance on moves like Ice Beam or Ice Fang. Since the inception of status conditions in the early generations of the series, GameFreak seems afraid to add more. I would love to see status conditions from other JRPGs make an appearance — like Petrification. That’d be great for Rock-types!
In-battle stat buffs also feel lazily handled as well. Swords Dance used to buff Attack by 2, but now in Legends Arceus stat-buffing moves now buff both of the relevant stats. So now Swords Dance will buff Attack and Special Attack by 2. Which feels odd for a move that’s always been thematically feature for physical attacking moves.
Calm Mind used to buff Special Attack and Special Defense by 2. Now because of the changes to how stat buffs work, Calm Mind buffs pretty much everything other than Speed. That just feels… wrong. Why did they do this? I’m at a loss as to why.
Stat buffs in a battle and status conditions are now only temporary and go away after a certain amount of turns in battle. I found this as an odd decision to tweak as well since most JRPGs have status conditions be present throughout the battle unless they’re healed or purified. Why not leave status conditions and buffs as-is and make more options for removing them? Only a few moves in standard Pokémon games reset stats or remove status conditions, so why not add more? And add some more status conditions while you’re at it?
It feels like GameFreak was trying to make changes just for the sake of it, and not really thinking about how they’d play out in practice. I like the attempt at the very least, but I really think GameFreak needs to take a page out of other turn-based JRPGs like Final Fantasy X and think about what tweaks to the combat make sense.
I also wasn’t really enthused about the Trainer battles. Most Trainers only have one Pokémon total, which just feels lame in comparison to previous games. They’re easily tossed aside. When it comes down to decisive battles against key characters in the game, they don’t even have a full party of Pokémon, which is disappointing as well. Only one key battle in the whole game is a 6v6, and it is done remarkably well. Why couldn’t every battle be like that?
My last criticism is against the Noble Pokémon battles and other boss battles in the game. Putting some action-based gameplay in Pokémon via dodge rolling like Kingdom Hearts is cool, sure, but it doesn’t amount to interesting gameplay at all. Boss battles boil down to lobbing balms at the Pokémon involved, lowering their health bar little by little while dodging their attacks.
Eventually, the Pokémon may get stunned and you can battle it normally to stun it further and get more hits in as a result. Sending a Pokémon in seems bugged or doesn’t have any rhyme or reason to it. During my playthrough, I didn’t receive the option at all while fighting Kleavor, and during a later boss in the Alabaster Icelands, my Pokémon couldn’t hit the boss to initiate the battle segment, so I had to keep throwing balms.
I’m not sure what can be done to improve the action-oriented gameplay here without straying too far from what Pokémon is. As much as I’d love to suggest giving me a sword to juggle or attack Pokémon like Zelda or NieR, it wouldn’t work thematically at all. GameFreak needs to find the right balance for boss battles without just boiling them down to a single turn-based fight. Perhaps a multi-stage boss fight like other JRPGs would work pretty well.
Looking to the Future
Pokémon Legends Arceus is a great step in the right direction for the series. Although it has some errors and tries too hard in some areas, I do hope this is the building block for GameFreak to advance the series further into something great. Pokémon is one of the biggest media franchises in the world and deserves good entries in its series. Thankfully, Legends is the right idea — and I hope Iwao directs future games in the series going forward as the primary director because his games have always turned out great.
Although I think Ohmori is likely working on Generation 9 next, I do hope GameFreak realizes the changes to gameplay in the overworld are what appeals to both fans of the series and the general audience. I’m excited to see what the developer does going forward with Generation 9 and potential DLC for Pokémon Legends Arceus because the future looks very bright.
